es Morgan's preserved water, higher up the stream. But
Mr. Hilton, the agent of the estate, was very firm in his refusal to
give them leave: for no reason that the Twins could see, since Sir
James was absent, shooting big game in Africa. They resented the
refusal bitterly; it seemed to them a wanton waste of the stream. It
was some consolation to them to make a well-judged raid one early
morning on the strawberry-beds in one of the walled gardens of Muttle
Deeping Grange.

About the middle of June the Terror went to London on a visit to their
Aunt Amelia. Sir Maurice Falconer and Miss Hendersyde saw to it that
it was not the unbroken series of visits to cats' homes Lady Ryehampton
had arranged for him; and he enjoyed it very much. On his return he
was able to assure the interested Erebus that their aunt's parrot still
said "dam" with a perfectly accurate, but monotonous iteration.

Soon after his return the news was spread abroad that Sir James Morgan
had let Muttle Deeping Grange. In the life of the Deeping villages the
mere letting of Muttle Deeping Grange was no unimportant event, but the
inhabitants of Great Deeping, Muttle Deeping (possibly a corruption of
Middle Deeping), and Little Deeping were stirred to the very depths of
their being when the news came that it had been let to a German
princess. The women, at any rate, awaited her coming with the
liveliest interest and curiosity, emotions dashed some way from their
fine height when they learned that Princess Elizabeth, of
Cassel-Nassau, was only twelve years and seven months old.

The Twins did not share the excited curiosity of their neighbors.
Resenting deeply the fact that the tenant of Muttle Deeping was a
_German_ princess, they assumed an attitude of cold aloofness in the
matter, and refused to be interested or impressed. Erebus was more
resentful than the Terror; and it is to be suspected that the high
patriotic spirit she displayed in the matter was in some degree owing
to the fact that Mrs. Blenkinsop, who came one afternoon to tea,
gushing information about the grandfathers, grandmothers, parents,
uncles, cousins and aunts of the princess, ended by saying, with
meaning, "And what a model she will be to the little girls of the
neighborhood!"

Erebus told the Terror that things were indeed come to a pretty pass
when it was suggested to an English girl, a Dangerfield, too, that she
should model herself on a German.

"I don't suppose it would